“So you can stay here and trifle around with some one else?” she exclaimed, turning to him a determined countenance upon which was drawn a sharp and wrathful sneer.
He stopped as if slapped in the face. In an instant his persuasive, conciliatory manner fled. He was on the defensive at a wink and puzzled for a word to reply.
“What do you mean?” he said at last, straightening himself and gazing at the cold, determined figure before him, who paid no attention, but went on arranging herself before the mirror.
“You know what I mean,” she said, finally, as if there were a world of information which she held in reserve—which she did not need to tell.
é“Well, I don’t,” he said, stubbornly, yet nervous and alert for what should come next. The finality of the woman’s manner took away his feeling of superiority in battle.
She made no answer.
“Hmph!” he murmured, with a movement of his head to one side. It was the weakest thing he had ever done. It was totally unassured.
Mrs. Hurstwood noticed the lack of colour in it. She turned upon him, animal-like, able to strike an effectual second blow.
“I want the Waukesha money to-morrow morning,” she said.
He looked at her in amazement. Never before had he seen such a cold, steely determination in her eye—such a cruel look of indifference. She seemed a thorough master of her mood—thoroughly confident and determined to wrest all control from him. He felt that all his resources could not defend him. He must attack.
“What do you mean?” he said, jumping up. “You want! I’d like to know what’s got into you to-night.”
“Nothing’s got into me,” she said, flaming. “I want that money. You can do your swaggering afterwards.”
“Swaggering, eh! What! You’ll get nothing from me. What do you mean by your insinuations, anyhow?”
“Where were you last night?” she answered. The words were hot as they came. “Who were you driving with on Washington Boulevard? Who were you with at the theatre when George saw you? Do you think I’m a fool to be duped by you? Do you think I’ll sit at home here and take your ‘too busys’ and ‘can’t come,’ while you parade around and make out that I’m unable to come? I want you to know that lordly airs have come to an end so far as I am concerned. You can’t dictate to me nor my children. I’m through with you entirely.”
“It’s a lie,” he said, driven to a corner and knowing no other excuse.
“Lie, eh!” she said, fiercely, but with returning reserve; “you may call it a lie if you want to, but I know.”
“It’s a lie, I tell you,” he said, in a low, sharp voice. “You’ve been searching around for some cheap accusation for months, and now you think you have it. You think you’ll spring something and get the upper hand. Well, I tell you, you can’t. As long as I’m in this house I’m master of it, and you or any one else won’t dictate to me—do you hear?”
He crept toward her with a light in his eye that was ominous. Something in the woman’s cool, cynical, upper-handish manner, as if she were already master, caused him to feel for the moment as if he could strangle her.
She gazed at him—a pythoness in humour.
“I’m not dictating to you,” she returned; “I’m telling you what I want.”
The answer was so cool, so rich in bravado, that somehow it took the wind out of his sails. He could not attack her, he could not ask her for proofs. Somehow he felt evidence, law, the remembrance of all his property which she held in her name, to be shining in her glance. He was like a vessel, powerful and dangerous, but rolling and floundering without sail.
“And I’m telling you,” he said in the end, slightly recovering himself, “what you’ll not get.”
“We’ll see about it,” she said. “I’ll find out what my rights are. Perhaps you’ll talk to a lawyer, if you won’t to me.”
It was a magnificent play, and had its effect. Hurstwood fell back beaten. He knew now that he had more than mere bluff to contend with. He felt that he was face to face with a dull proposition. What to say he hardly knew. All the merriment had gone out of the day. He was disturbed, wretched, resentful. What should he do?
“Do as you please,” he said, at last. “I’ll have nothing more to do with you,” and out he strode.
CHAPTER XXIII
A SPIRIT IN TRAVAIL: ONE RUNG PUT BEHIND
WHEN CARRIE REACHED HER own room she had already fallen a prey to those doubts and misgivings which are ever the result of a lack of decision. She could not persuade herself as to the advisability of her promise, or that now, having given her word, she ought to keep it. She went over the whole ground in Hurstwood’s absence, and discovered little objections that had not occurred to her in the warmth of the manager’s argument. She saw where she had put herself in a peculiar light, namely, that of agreeing to marry when she was already supposedly married. She remembered a few things Drouet had done, and now that it came to walking away from him without a word, she felt as if she were doing wrong. Now, she was comfortably situated, and to one who is more or less afraid of the world, this is an urgent matter, and one which puts up strange, uncanny arguments. “You do not know what will come. There are miserable things outside. People go a-begging. Women are wretched. You never can tell what will happen. Remember the time you were hungry. Stick to what you have.”
Curiously, for all her leaning towards Hurstwood, he had not taken a firm hold on her understanding. She was listening, smiling, approving, and yet not finally agreeing. This was due to a lack of power on his part, a lack of that majesty of passion that sweeps the mind from its seat, fuses and melts all arguments and theories into a tangled mass, and destroys for the time being the reasoning power. This majesty of passion is possessed by nearly every man once in his life, but it is usually an attribute of youth and conduces to the first successful mating.
Hurstwood, being an older man, could scarcely be said to retain the fire of youth, though he did possess a passion warm and unreasoning. It was strong enough to induce the leaning toward him which, on Carrie’s part, we have seen. She might have been said to be imagining: herself in love, when she was not. Women frequently do this. It flows from the fact that in each exists a bias toward affection, a craving for the pleasure of being loved. The longing to be shielded, bettered, sympathised with, is one of the attributes of the sex. This, coupled with sentiment and a natural tendency to emotion, often makes refusing difficult. It persuades them that they are in love.
Once at home, she changed her clothes and straightened the rooms for herself. In the matter of the arrangement of the furniture she never took the house-maid’s opinion. That young woman invariably put one of the rocking-chairs in the corner, and Carrie as regularly moved it out. To-day she hardly noticed that it was in the wrong place, so absorbed was she in her own thoughts. She worked about the room until Drouet put in appearance at five o’clock. The drummer was flushed and excited and full of determination to know all about her relations with Hurstwood. Nevertheless, after going over the subject in his mind the livelong day, he was rather weary of it and wished it over with. He did not foresee serious consequences of any sort, and yet he rather hesitated to begin. Carrie was sitting by the window when he came in, rocking and looking out.
“Well,” she said innocently, weary of her own mental discussion and wondering at his haste and ill-concealed excitement, “what makes you hurry so?”
Drouet hesitated, now that he was in her presence, uncertain as to what course to pursue. He was no diplomat. He could neither read nor see.
“When did you get home?” he asked foolishly.
“Oh, an hour or so ago. What makes you ask that?”
“You weren’t here,” he said, “when I came back this morning, and I thought you had gone out.”
“So I did,” said Carrie simply. “I went for a walk.”
Drouet looked at her wonderingly. For all his lack of dignity in such matters he did not know how to begin. He stared at her in the most flagrant manner until at last she said:
“What makes you stare at me so? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “I was just thinking.”
“Just thinking what?” she returned smilingly, puzzled by his attitude.
“Oh, nothing—nothing much.”
“Well, then, what makes you look so?”
Drouet was standing by the dresser, gazing at her in a comic manner. He had laid off his hat and gloves and was now fidgeting with the little toilet pieces which were nearest him. He hesitated to believe that the pretty woman before him was involved in anything so unsatisfactory to himself. He was very much inclined to feel that it was all right, after all. Yet the knowledge imparted to him by the chambermaid was rankling in his mind. He wanted to plunge in with a straight remark of some sort, but he knew not what.
“Where did you go this morning?” he finally asked weakly.
“Why, I went for a walk,” said Carrie.
“Sure you did?” he asked.
“Yes, what makes you ask?”
She was beginning to see now that he knew something. Instantly she drew herself into a more reserved position. Her cheeks blanched slightly.
“I thought maybe you didn’t,” he said, beating about the bush in the most useless manner.
Carrie gazed at him, and as she did so her ebbing courage halted. She saw that he himself was hesitating, and with a woman’s intuition realised that there was no occasion for great alarm.
“What makes you talk like that?” she asked, wrinkling her pretty forehead. “You act so funny to-night.”
“I feel funny,” he answered.
They looked at one another for a moment, and then Drouet plunged desperately into his subject.
“What’s this about you and Hurstwood?” he asked.
“Me and Hurstwood—what do you mean?”
“Didn’t he come here a dozen times while I was away?”
“A dozen times,” repeated Carrie, guiltily. “No, but what do you mean?”
“Somebody said that you went out riding with him and that he came here every night.”
“No such thing,” answered Carrie. “It isn’t true. Who told you that?”
She was flushing scarlet to the roots of her hair, but Drouet did not catch the full hue of her face, owing to the modified light of the room. He was regaining much confidence as Carrie defended herself with denials.
“Well, some one,” he said. “You’re sure you didn’t?”
“Certainly,” said Carrie. “You know how often he came.”
Drouet paused for a moment and thought.
“I know what you told me,” he said finally.
He moved nervously about, while Carrie looked at him confusedly.
“Well, I know that I didn’t tell you any such thing as that,” said Carrie, recovering herself.
“If I were you,” went on Drouet, ignoring her last remark, “I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He’s a married man, you know.”
“Who—who is?” said Carrie, stumbling at the word.
“Why, Hurstwood,” said Drouet, noting the effect and feeling that he was delivering a telling blow.
“Hurstwood!” exclaimed Carrie, rising. Her face had changed several shades since this announcement was made. She looked within and without herself in a half-dazed way.
“Who told you this?” she asked, forgetting that her interest was out of order and exceedingly incriminating.
“Why, I know it. I’ve always known it,” said Drouet.
Carrie was feeling about for a right thought. She was making a most miserable showing, and yet feelings were generating within her which were anything but crumbling cowardice.
“I thought I told you,” he added.
“No, you didn’t,” she contradicted, suddenly recovering her voice. “You didn’t do anything of the kind.”
Drouet listened to her in astonishment. This was something new.
“I thought I did,” he said.
Carrie looked around her very solemnly, and then went over to the window.
“You oughtn’t to have had anything to do with him,” said Drouet in an injured tone, “after all I’ve done for you.”
“You,” said Carrie, “you! What have you done for me?”
Her little brain had been surging with contradictory feelings—shame at exposure, shame at Hurstwood’s perfidy, anger at Drouet’s deception, the mockery he had made of her. Now one clear idea came into her head. He was at fault. There was no doubt about it. Why did he bring Hurstwood out—Hurstwood, a married man, and never say a word to her? Never mind now about Hurstwood’s perfidy—why had he done this? Why hadn’t he warned her? There he stood now, guilty of this miserable breach of confidence and talking about what he had done for her!
“Well, I like that,” exclaimed Drouet, little realising the fire his remark had generated. “I think I’ve done a good deal.”
“You have, eh?” she answered. “You’ve deceived me—that’s what you’ve done. You’ve brought your friends out here under false pretences. You’ve made me out to be—Oh,” and with this her voice broke and she pressed her two little hands together tragically.
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” said the drummer quaintly.
“No,” she answered, recovering herself and shutting her teeth. “No, of course you don’t see. There isn’t anything you see. You couldn’t have told me in the first place, could you? You had to make me out wrong until it was too late. Now you come sneaking around with your information and your talk about what you have done.”
Drouet had never suspected this side of Carrie’s nature. She was alive with feeling, her eyes snapping, her lips quivering, her whole body sensible of the injury she felt, and partaking of her wrath.
“Who’s sneaking?” he asked, mildly conscious of error on his part, but certain that he was wronged.
“You are,” stamped Carrie. “You’re a horrid, conceited coward, that’s what you are. If you had any sense of manhood in you, you wouldn’t have thought of doing any such thing.”
The drummer stared.